Food And Wine

MISTRAL, THE DELIGHTS OF SCIENCE IN THE KITCHEN

From science to cuisine, molecular gastronomy revolutionizes the pleasure of food, making lighter many traditional recipes.

It starts from the study of the changes that occur at the molecular level when we cook the most traditional recipes: from pasta with tomato sauce up to the roast. Result? New cooking methods, which do not involve the use of fat and maintain high content in vitamins and minerals.
In addition, the gastronomic success is guaranteed by the exaltation of original flavours and by the possibility to “carve” new taste synergies.

Some practical example? You can use alcohol (which has the power to coagulate proteins without altering the flavour) to solidify eggs, as if they were cooked.Or you can prepare an ice cream in a flash using -196° liquid nitrogen: the advantage is that the food cools more quickly and loses its “freezing” impact in the mouth, so that taste buds can enjoy all the ice cream flavours from the beginning to the end.

MORE HEALTHY, MORE GOOD

Other tricks? The soy lecithin is used as an ingredient for the preparation of pasta: if you add it to flour and water, it creates a soft and durable texture that can be used to thicken even liquid and
fat-free sauces such as fish stock. The frying oil is replaced by melted sugar.The food to be cooked (for example, fish) is wrapped in leaves of vegetables (for example, leek) before being immersed in a mixture of sugars at 190 °.
This frying liquid conducts heat better than oil and has a viscosity which retains aromas, moisture and nutrients inside the fish.This results in a very short cooking, which respects the structure of the fish flesh and retains all its aromas.
The leaves of vegetables also prevent sugar from sticking to the food surface, therefore avoiding an increase in its caloric value.

LOW-CALORIES SAUCES AND DESSERTS

Sauces can be prepared without oil or eggs. For instance, the soft and velvety texture of tuna fish sauce is obtained by using soy lecithin.So the calories decrease and that’s good for the cardiovascular system.
Last but not least, a drizzle of olive oil replaces cream, eggs or thickeners in the preparation of sweet mousses.

But where to taste these delicacies? At Restaurant Mistral inside Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, where works the starred chef Ettore Bocchia, leading expert of Italian molecular cuisine.